How to Run a Baseball Tryout: Coaches’ Tips

Baseball tryouts are among the most critical aspects of your baseball team’s success.

Whether you’re a baseball league coach or conducting high school baseball tryouts, it’s crucial to understand the importance of a properly structured baseball tryout. With a solid plan in place, you can effectively evaluate players’ talent and make team placement decisions with confidence.

Here are 8 tips to guide you through a successful baseball tryout, guaranteeing that you assemble a well-rounded team for the upcoming season.

8 Baseball Tryout Tips for Coaches

If you’re unsure how to host a successful baseball tryout, don’t worry—here are our proven tips to guide you.

1. Select baseball tryout drills

The three main objectives of baseball tryout drills are to:

1. Provide you with real-time feedback on a player’s athletic capacity.
2. Next, evaluate the athlete’s overall suitability for the team.
3. Identify positions where each athlete plays best on the team.

How to choose the best baseball tryout drills?

• Make a list of baseball skills that are most important to measure. I.e., Hitting, fielding, pitching, and base running.
• Choose 3-4 drills under each skill. For example, when measuring pitching ability, a few baseball drills would be the three-minute, T-alignment, and push-off drills.
• *In addition to skill-specific drills, score players on overall attitude, work ethic, and teamwork.

For more info on what baseball tryout drills to add, check out our blog: 8 of the Best Baseball Tryout Drills.

2. Choose unbiased evaluators

Parents, family friends, and former coaches are all examples of biased evaluators. With close ties to an athlete, they are likely to have a negative impact on final scores. I.e., An examiner gives a high mark to a player because he’s his uncle, although the athlete does not qualify.

In order to ensure fairness in evaluations and create a level playing field for all athletes, choose unbiased evaluators. Then, athletes are assessed purely on their technique, character, and skill level, ensuring equal opportunity for all.

Tip: To streamline your baseball tryouts, designate one evaluator for each drill to ensure efficient flow. This allows evaluators to become proficient in the specific drill they are assessing.

3. Debrief evaluators

Later, once evaluators are selected, they will hold a brief meeting before the baseball tryout starts. Evaluators should be educated on what they should be looking for at the drill station(s) they are assigned to. Therefore, take the time to explain the scoring system to evaluators.

For instance, a perfect score (10) for throwing accuracy includes when a player can throw a pitch at the desired target. A perfect score (10) for throwing mechanics includes when a player demonstrates a relaxed grip on the ball, starts in a hip-width stance, and ensures that their thigh and shin (on the stride leg) form a 90-degree angle during wind-up.

4. Double-check drill stations

Here is a short checklist you can cover to make sure baseball drill stations are ready to go:

• Does each station have the necessary equipment? E.g., balls, bats, helmets, gloves, bases, cones, netting, pitching mound, first aid kit
• Ensure the stations clearly numbered
• Is there a sufficient amount of space at each station for athletes to perform each drill?
• Are there clear pathways, allowing for a smooth traffic flow between drills?

5. Explain drills

Pass players through every baseball tryout drill directly following the warm-up. The coach then briefly explains the drills and what baseball skills are asses at each drill station.

Note: Doing a comprehensive drill run-through at the beginning of tryouts won’t disrupt the flow of the timed stations. Players will spend the allotted amount of time at each station executing the drill.

6. Score baseball players

As each station has a time limit to ensure baseball tryouts run smoothly, evaluators have the task of scoring players in a timely manner. This is where baseball evaluation software comes in. Say goodbye to printing out evaluation forms and handing them out to every evaluator at tryouts (with the risk of them not getting handed back in).

Additionally, with a baseball evaluation app, evaluators can score players on any skill by either using a slider or manually entering an objective score (i.e., fastball speed time). 

Score athletes right on your mobile device or tablet in the SkillShark app

7. Make timely drafting decisions

Players want to hear back within a reasonable time frame regarding the team selection process. As a general rule of thumb, post results within 48-72 hours after tryouts.

However, in order to ensure you have made well-informed decisions, here are a couple of questions to ask:

• Rank players across each assessed core category (i.e., hitting, fielding, pitching, base running, character)?
• Have you run weighted reports and/or comparison reports to analyze players on a more granular level?
• Have you taken at least 24-48 hours to review all evaluation data to avoid making impulsive decisions?

8. Provide baseball players with their tryout feedback

Now that teams are chosen and scores have been posted, there is one final step in the tryout process: providing athlete feedback.

With every team placement decision comes an influx of questions from athletes and their parents:

• “Why didn’t I make the team?”
• “What skills did I lack?”
• “How can I better improve X skills?”

How SkillShark Makes Baseball Tryouts Easier

Athlete report cards answer all of the above important questions that athletes have. With SkillShark, coaches don’t need to spend any extra time configuring or formatting reports after tryouts. All coaches have to do is navigate to the ‘Individual Reports’ tab in the SkillShark app, select a player to view their auto-generated report, and hit the send button. From there, a report is sent directly to the inbox of that athlete.

Athletes can see what skills they were evaluated on, their scores, and how they compare to the team average. Additionally, any comments or videos that were added by evaluators will be included in the report.

Individual reports in SkillShark

Wrapping Up

Using SkillShark, you can easily score baseball players on your smartphone or tablet. Once your evaluation is complete, instantly gain access to player reports. Review player data and draft teams on the same day!